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Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S172a

Introduction

As Albert Brussee has rightly shown, the earlier, monothematic version of the work was much extended in the second version, and a new, contrasting theme was added. The principal theme, as he likewise observed, clearly recalls the rhythm of the prayer ‘Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis’. The whole work is of that particular blend of formal solemnity in the face of the eternal mysteries and fervent ardour of which Liszt was such a master, and it is a great pity that he never returned to the work or else its future would have been more worthily assured. (The manuscript of the first version lacks its ending, which it seems would have been imminent, and the piece has been completed here by using the parallel passage from the second version.) There is a thematic connection between this piece and Invocation, but it is impossible to establish that the collection is truly cyclic in any way.

The Miserere is not as florid as its later version, but consists of a simple statement and a variation of the opening of Psalm 51 (Vulgate 50):

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

(Liszt’s source for the Latin text is as faulty as its attribution to Palestrina.) The Pater noster is a transcription of a setting for men’s chorus of the Lord’s Prayer which Liszt had originally composed in 1846. This is a very restrained arrangement, even more straightforward than the 1851 revision.

The Prière d’un enfant à son réveil, a simple lullaby/prayer of 1840, almost certainly refers to Liszt and Marie’s third child, their one-year-old son Daniel. When the piece underwent much change and extension, adapted to poetry of Lamartine to produce a choral work and then transcribed for piano (and both choral and piano pieces underwent further revision), all entitled Hymne de l’enfant à son réveil, the reference becomes universal: a child pondering the relationship between himself, his parents, and his and their heavenly Father.

Prose des morts – De profundis is an extraordinary piece, as astounding as its 1834 conception as Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, and, on the whole, more original than the final version Pensée des morts. As far as the present writer can determine from the N9 Sketchbook which contains no instruction but two passages of music – one of some thirty-one bars, and another of eighteen bars, the end of which has been mutilated when the following pages were torn from the sketchbook – Liszt’s apparent plan was to substitute the two passages in the original piece (for those who have the published score of that work, bars 40-62 and bars 120-123) in order to introduce the chant De profundis, which is underlaid with the appropriate text from Psalm 130 (Vulgate 129):

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

Liszt weaves the chant and his previous material together, in a way which he dropped in the final version which presents the chant unadorned. Thereupon he returns to the Andante religioso section of the original – material which was much altered or dropped completely in 1851. The peroration is extended, and right at the end of the second insert the rhythm of the chant returns, on a static augmented triad, and the promised G major tonality is avoided as in the original version.

Although La lampe du temple was the basis for the later Andante lagrimoso, this is a much larger piece, and possesses rather a different poem by Lamartine as preface. In this case La lampe du temple ou l’âme présente de Dieu, to quote Brussee, ‘is expressive of adoration, speaking of the immortality of the Lord and His creation … [and] demands music of an expansive character’. In contrast, the poem Une larme (which prefaces the Andante lagrimoso) opens with the words ‘Tombez, larmes silencieuses, sur une terre sans pitié’ (‘Fall, O silent tears, upon an earth without pity’), words which suggest a silent, tragic mood.

The tenth piece, which can safely be entitled Hymne, is a simple and grand hymn-like melody, swathed in robust arpeggios expressive of joy unclouded by doubt. The central section is more turbulent, but the reprise and coda are all bathed in the brightest light. After such affirmative grandeur, the only requirement is some kind of envoi, and, taking a cue from Liszt’s later use of the material in the central section of Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, the title Bénédiction seems reasonable enough. This work is itself a revision of a piece which, following Albert Brussee and Rena Charnin-Mueller, we may call Prélude, for want of an alternative. The manuscript of the earlier piece shows some incomplete attempts at revision, but all of these have been ignored in the present reading in order to present the work – a peaceful little composition – in its original finished shape. Most of the revisions were incorporated or further revised in the second version which develops the material on a somewhat larger scale. (Interestingly, the music contracts again when Liszt inserts it into the newly composed Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude.)

Taken all in all, the 1847 series is rather more homogeneous than the later set, and cries out for complete Urtext publication.

Recordings

Leslie Howard’s recordings of Liszt’s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard’s Herculean piano p ...» More

'Howard is a match for all that Liszt throws at his performers' (Gramophone)'This is surely one of the most valuable of Leslie Howard's pioneering series, and all Lisztians should have it' (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)» More